STARI STUDENTS OUTPERFORMED CONTROL STUDENTS BY MORE THAN A YEAR’S WORTH OF GROWTH.

Evidence STARI Works

In a 2013-14 randomized, clinical trial, STARI students outperformed control students in decoding, fluency, vocabulary, sentence structure, and comprehension.

FREE

Jasmine, 8th Grade STARI has helped me

become a better reader because talking with

others and hearing the opinions of others can

help me learn more about what I'm reading

about.

TIER II READING INTERVENTION

Word

Recognitio

n

Vocabulary

Morphological

Awareness

Sentence

Processi

ng

Efficiency

of Basic

Reading Comprehension

Reading

Comprehension

Reading

Comprehension

(GISA)

Impact of STARI on RISE and GISA

serpinstitute.org/stari

An engaging, literature-focused curriculum for students in grades 6-9 reading two or

more years behind grade level

Other intervention (control) Assigned to STARI Completed 2-3 units of STARI

AJ, 8th Grade STARI has actually

helped me to become a better reader because, at the beginning of the year, I thought I wasn't

much of a fluent reader. I kept pausing in the middle of reading a

sentence. But the more I read, the more practice it took ... I just became

better.

(202) 223-8555 info@serpinstitute.org

Strategic Education Research Partnership serpinstitute.org

Development of STARI was led by Lowry Hemphill (Wheelock College) through a SERP collaboration with Harvard University and four Massachusetts school districts. The research reported here was supported by the Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education, through Grant R305F100026 to the Strategic Education Research Partnership as part of the Reading for Understanding Research Initiative. The opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not represent views of the Institute or the U.S. Department of Education.

STARI is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

curriculum downloads available at

Uni

t 2.4

Immigration Debate

stariStrategic Adolescent Reading Intervention

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t 2.3

Harlem Renaissance

stariStrategic Adolescent Reading Intervention

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t 2.2

In War Time

stariStrategic Adolescent Reading Intervention

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t 2.1

They Got Game

stariStrategic Adolescent Reading Intervention

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t 1.4

Disaster Strikes!

stariStrategic Adolescent Reading Intervention

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Telling Our Stories

stariStrategic Adolescent Reading Intervention

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What Makes a Family?

stariStrategic Adolescent Reading Intervention

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Stand Up for Yourself

stariStrategic Adolescent Reading Intervention

Series 1 Grades 6-8

Each series addresses similar reading needs, but the series 2 topics and reading materials are more sophisticated. Each unit is designed to take approximately 40 instructional days and includes:

Student Workbooks Engaging activities build higher-level comprehension skills and emphasize collaborative partner work

Literature selections Sets of high quality nonfiction and fiction books at accessible challenge levels

Leveled Fluency Passages Sets of passages at four levels of difficulty with topics linked to unit themes

Teacher Lesson Plans Detailed guides to each lesson’s activities

Fluency routine

15-20 min

Mini-lesson

10-15 min

Guided reading 15-20 min

Partner reading

15-20 min

Leveled fluency passages ✔ develop reading rate and stamina ✔ offer practice with academic language patterns ✔ build background knowledge for the unit novel and

nonfiction books

Decoding instruction ✔ builds strategies to attack complex words ✔ focuses on multisyllable words and complex letter

patterns that often trip up older struggling readers ✔ includes frequent practice embedded in text

Comprehension strategy instruction ✔ uses Reciprocal Teaching approach to build a

repertoire of comprehension strategies ✔ teaches when, why and how to apply strategies ✔ emphasizes partner work as a scaffold between

teacher-led and independent use of strategies

Partner reading ✔ builds social bonds and strengthens belonging ✔ counteracts prior experiences of reading failure ✔ provides frequent opportunity for every student to

engage in eyes-on-text reading

Guided reading ✔ provides a structure to access texts in manageable

chunks ✔ supports students in applying strategies taught in

whole-class mini-lessons ✔ builds up students’ stamina for reading

independently Peer talk ✔ promotes more complex response to text ✔ supports perspective taking ✔ supports listening skills

Debate ✔ provides social motivation for developing more

elaborated stances ✔ requires students to integrate evidence

from multiple texts ✔ offers opportunities for practicing

academic discourse patterns

PROGRAM COMPONENTS

TYPICAL STARI LESSON Each lesson consists of 2-3 of the following activities:

Using research-based practices and highly engaging texts, STARI addresses gaps in fluency, decoding, reading stamina, and reading comprehension, aiming to move struggling students to higher levels of proficiency at the end of one year. STARI actively engages students in discussions of cognitively challenging content aligned to 21st century standards.

STARI is built around key research findings:

‣ Adolescent struggling readers need to work on both basic reading skills and the skills that underlie deep comprehension.

‣ Texts need to engage students with issues that are personally and socially relevant.

‣ Peer talk about text can develop reading engagement, perspective-taking, and critical reading.

In order to be successful with STARI, we recommend no more than 14 students per class. In addition, schools should devote either 45-60 minutes, 5 days a week, or 90 minutes on an A-day/B-day schedule to STARI.

STARI is intended to be a “double dose” intervention that should not take the place of core curriculum.

ABOUT STARI

Series 2 Grades 7-9